Watches

2019 SIHH Review: Hits and Misses

Another SIHH has come and gone.  I think 2019 will be remembered as the year Richard Mille brought a candy shop to Geneva. Until next year when they open a Home Depot/DIY like store for their booth and all their watches feature 100%authentic wood nails and hammer-drills and sawzalls™.(Milwaukee Electric Tool Company)

I’ve only presented a handful of the best here. There’s tons of coverage elseware so I really wanted to distill it down to my absolute favorites.


JLC’s Enamel tourbillion repeater ?

Jaeger LeCoultre had a hit last year at SIHH with three similar lower end models in the Master Control Collection. This year they brought the most heat possible with the MASTER GRANDE TRADITION GYROTOURBILLON WESTMINSTER PERPÉTUEL. That’s a mouthful. Limited to 18 pieces spread across two different color enamel dials, this repeater uses four gongs and hammers to repeat the “Westminster Chime”. Buy now for $800,000.


TOURBILLON SOUVERAIN VERTICAL

I like FP Journe. I don’t like tourbillons, much. This reference features the regulator rotated “vertical” as the name of the watch implies. It also rotates every 30 seconds instead of the typical 60. I wasn’t able to get a video of the piece in action but stay tuned, video will pop up at some point. Look how amazing just the back of the movement is! The bridge is a bit clunky, but I’ll allow it. Priced around $250,000.


The Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Twin Beat Perpetual Calendar

Finally a perpetual calendar for the lazy-man or woman.

This piece features a high-frequency and a low frequency mode. In low frequency it has a 65 day power reserve. Because of this I think it might be the only perpetual calendar I could actually keep on time. I have almost every other perpetual calendar and they’re always wrong because I forget to wind them and am too cheap to buy winders. The dial is a beautiful guilloche with a partial skeleton interference. The gold wheels, the visible leap year wheel at 6 o’clock. Outstanding. Throw out your old perpetuals and pick this up for $199K.

Just leave this on repeat for a few hours.

Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak Jumbo Extra-Thin Reference 15202BC

????????
  • The color of the dial. “Pink gold-toned” aka Salmon.
  • The color of the date wheel. (Yeah, blends in pretty good!)
  • White gold
  • 8mm thick
  • Limited to 75 pieces, but probably not. (boutique only $55,400)
  • It’s beautiful in a weird, dated day.
More ?- their pink gold-toned “Petite Tapisserie” dial 

Misses

  • The AP Code 11:59 collection (This will get its own post.)
  • The Richard Mille BonBon collection (Same.)
  • The 2019 SIHH show in general.

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